Identity Cards Bill

The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is right. I indicated yesterday that we will come to that issue in its proper place. Rather than repeat the debate now I hope that the noble Lord will feel content for us to do so there. Many of the issues that have been raised this afternoon under this amendment were dealt with in part during our rather long and interesting debate on Amendment No. 1 yesterday and I do not intend to repeat all that I said then. But there are some specific issues with which it is important for us to deal. When the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, was dealing with the biometric data and the difficulties that he indicated, he concentrated on error rates of 30 per cent and inaccuracies of 1 per cent. Since those figures seem to have a remarkable similarity to the report issued by the London School of Economics, they probably come from the Italian study which was mentioned in that report. I am sure that the noble Earl will correct me if I am wrong. Biometric systems were designed for academic study not wide-scale industrial use. It would be better, as I indicated yesterday, to look at the US National Institute of Standards & Technology data, which were not referred to at any time in the London School of Economics report, as far as I am aware. It is highly unusual for an academic report from an institution of that standard to avoid or fail to identify this very important work. It is the world’s leading institute for biometric trials. It has conducted a study with six million fingerprints and confirmed that biometrics was suitable for large-scale use. Indeed, the United States VISIT system uses biometrics for border control and it does not have a 30 per cent failure rate. So I think that we need to put these things into their proper context. We have some confidence that the kind of rigour with which we are approaching this issue is correct. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, that the Government will use their best endeavours to ensure that the system that they put in place is the very best that can be provided and that it comes within our knowledge and expertise and the data currently available. However, my noble friend Lady Henig is right to remind the Committee that we already have a number of very complex systems where security is an issue—the national criminal records office being but one. I heard what the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, said about three police officers improperly using information obtained from the register. But it is important to bear in mind that, if they were officers, they would have used the very nature of their office to give them legitimate access and then they would have abused it. It does not mean that the national criminal records are themselves thereby corrupted; it means that impropriety of use has occurred and has been identified and those held responsible for it have been appropriately and properly arrested, dealt with and convicted. Of course, if anyone were responsible for a breach of duty, we would expect them to be dealt with similarly. The statutory purposes of the register are twofold. First, it will provide a convenient method by which individuals can prove registrable facts about themselves—that is, they will be able to prove their identity—and, secondly, it will provide a secure and reliable method by which registrable facts about individuals can be ascertained or verified. The amendments focus on the reliability of the national identity register. As I am sure noble Lords are aware, they are unnecessary as the fact that security of the register will be of paramount importance does not need to be set out in primary legislation. It stands to reason that everything that we are doing is predicated on the need for that security. Furthermore, the Data Protection Act—in particular, the seventh data protection principle—imposes a statutory obligation to ensure that the appropriate technical measures are taken to secure the safety of the register. I come to Amendment No. 175 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, which he has kindly indicated is a probing amendment. It would give the Secretary of State the power to cancel an ID card if there had been unauthorised access to the record of an individual. If a card has been lost or stolen and is used to access the register, the Secretary of State already has the power to cancel the card under Clause 13(2)(b). There is also a power under Clause 13(2)(e) to cancel a card of a description that the Secretary of State has decided should be re-issued—for example, cards where there is reason to suspect that the register has been interfered with. As soon as the cardholder reports his ID card either lost or stolen, it will be cancelled. Therefore it is unlikely that unauthorised access to the record will occur and, in our view, the noble Lord’s amendment is unnecessary. The noble Lord also asked whether Clause 13(7) covers tampering with the register. The answer is that it does not—the provision is limited to interference with a card. But the Secretary of State will have the power to cancel and replace a card in those circumstances under, I think, Clause 13(2)(c). If noble Lords will give me a moment, I will check in the Bill whether that is correct.